


Emotional Vomit

by Miso



Series: A War He Can't Forget [15]
Category: SCTV (Canada TV)
Genre: Emotional Roller Coaster, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Suicide Attempt, earl is trying and its sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 05:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miso/pseuds/Miso
Summary: In a perfect world, Floyd wouldn't be here to deal with the fallout of his suicide attempt, but he is. (Big ol' trigger warning for suicide, suicide attempts, and mentions of child abuse.)





	Emotional Vomit

**Author's Note:**

> HOOOOO BOY THIS ONE'S A DOOZY. yknow how i mentioned that floyd hit Absolute Rock Bottom? yeah this is how that went down. (the suicide attempt itself isn't depicted but obviously it's mentioned frequently. floyd is Not Okay.)

Floyd figured the worst part about trying to kill himself would be the aftermath, once he realized he wasn't dead. In a perfect world, he wouldn't be around for it, but of _course_ his stupid terrible luck had to kick in when Earl "saved his life" by arriving home to check on him at lunch. As a result, he'd sat in a hospital for a week, and then been transferred to said hospital's psychiatric department for another two.

Everyone acted like he was made of porcelain when he got back and the people that didn't acted like he was dangerous or crazy. The one thing Floyd didn't want was to be pitied, but not being taken seriously was almost worse. It was bad enough when Kathleen, the receptionist/secretary/whatever she was he thought might have a thing for him, gave him a look of sorrow and asked if he was doing okay in that voice he'd heard so many peoples' visitors use to subtly condescend to them, but then a nameless writer for some sitcom had made an offhanded comment that it was probably all just an overblown cry for attention that got out of hand. In response, Floyd had clenched his fists and taken a deep breath, trying to keep himself from strangling whoever-the-fuck it was.

As it was, he sat alone in the cafeteria. He was starting to get used to that after two weeks back on the job. Earl would have been with him, but he was off on a One On The Town shoot. He had, however, found time to pack Floyd's lunch that morning. _Like I'm some helpless baby,_ he couldn't help but note, even as he nibbled at the tuna salad sandwich almost begrudgingly. He looked over notes for the news and pretended to ignore all the points and piteous looks he got, each one sending a fiery reminder of why he wanted to be dead in the first place into his heart. Caballero didn't trust him to be alone in his office after "the incident" (as most people started referring to it) and insisted he either keep the door wide open or stay out among other people. "What," Floyd had said, "You think I'm gonna blow my brains out in my office?"

Bad decision. Now he couldn't even leave the door open. If he was in his office, someone was there with him. Usually, it was Earl, and he didn't mind that so much. Floyd could at least talk to Earl, usually about something other than the fact that not two weeks ago he was half-dead in a hospital ICU. He didn't dare mention anything he'd been thinking lately to anyone; not how the first thought he had most mornings was "I wish I was dead," not how more than once while shaving he thought about just taking a spare blade to his wrists (or, on the darker days, his throat) and finishing what the pills started, not how some of the "notes" he'd taken while reading stories were more final goodbyes. None of that.

Floyd didn't look up from the news stories he was reading when someone sat across from him. Then another someone. "... You okay, eh?"

"You look real sad, eh."

Bob and Doug McKenzie. Nice guys, but unbearably stupid. Canadian transplant brothers. Again, Floyd didn't look up at them. "I'm fine," he responded, as tersely as possible. "I mean, who wouldn't be fine after trying and failing to kill themselves? I'm just fucking peachy."

"... You don't sound fine." Bob, the younger McKenzie brother, gently nudged something toward Floyd. "I brought you somethin' from home, eh."

With a heavy sigh, Floyd glanced at whatever it was Bob had pushed toward him. A cookie, shaped like a maple leaf. Literally the most Canadian thing Floyd had ever seen. Cute. He sighed and shook his head all the same, pushing it back. "I'm fine," he repeated. Bob pouted a little, looking legitimately hurt.

"We're just worried about you," Doug said, placing a protective hand on his brother's shoulder. "If there's anythin' we can do, eh-"

"Oh my GOD!" Floyd finally snapped, slamming his fists onto the table in frustration. "I'm SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of people treating me like a baby!" Bob and Doug recoiled in unison and hugged each other close. "No one gave a shit before I tried to kill myself! You can't go from not giving a flying FUCK about me to treating me like I'm _made of fucking glass!_ "

"Geeze, we were just tryin' to help," Bob said, adjusting his toque. "You don't gotta be such a jerk about it."

"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" Floyd snarled, rising to his feet and leaning over the comparatively-diminutive brothers. "Treating me like a little goddamn kid isn't helping!" He focused his attention on the cafeteria at large, all of the other occupants by now staring at him in a combination of confusion and fear. "STARING at me and POINTING at me and fucking talking about me behind my back ISN'T HELPING!" Tears pricked his eyes. He didn't care. "PITYING ME ISN'T HELPING!" His voice had risen from a commanding shout to a hysterical scream. "ACTING LIKE I'M SOME KIND OF MONSTER ISN'T HELPING!" A sob crept out of his throat before he could stop it. "None of you gave a shit then and none of you give a shit now! If any of you really cared- really _fucking cared_ about whether or not my miserable ass was alive- you would've shown it BEFORE I tried to-!" Another sob. "None of you give a good goddamn about whether or not I'm alive! You _don't even know me!_ You don't know what I've BEEN THROUGH! If any of you- any fucking one of you- had even the _slightest fucking taste_ of my traumatic-ass life you would have done the exact same thing I did!"

Floyd was pretty sure Bob was crying by this point. He thought he spotted William B. Williams in the back of the room, confused and cowering. Good. Let them cry. Let them be scared. Maybe they'd understand a little better. "You think you're all gonna play the fucking savior?! You think-" he put on a singsong falsetto, despite his voice cracking- "Oh, poor pitiful Robertson! It's such a SHAME he's so crazy he tried to kill himself! But I bet we can just LOVE the crazy away and he'll be JUST FUCKING PEACHY!" Floyd sobbed and gritted his teeth for a moment before carrying on. "You know none of you would even fucking notice if I HAD died! You'd have gone on with your lives like nothing fucking happened! Hell, you might even be _happier_ not having to deal with me! NONE OF YOU cared before I tried and NONE OF YOU CARE NOW! You just wanna get your fuckin' good deed points in and feel like you ~tried your best~ to help me when all you did was either treat me like I was either made of goddamn glass or some kind of monster!"

A young woman that worked on the Maudlin Show writing crew was recoiling away. Floyd recognized her from an incident in a store a couple days earlier. He'd found his next target. "Like you!" he snapped, pointing an accusatory finger in her direction. "Did you or did you NOT pull your son closer to you when I walked past you in the grocery store?! All I was doing was fuckin' buying bread and you acted like I was gonna whip out a gun and shoot myself in front of your _snot-nosed little brat!_ " She didn't respond, but did lower her gaze to the floor.

"And YOU!" Floyd continued, whipping around in the direction of an intern currently trying to sneak away. "Did you or did you NOT make fun of me with your shitty fucking frat brother friends in the hall the other day?!" He made his voice into a squeaky chipmunk-esque mockery of the intern's. "I'm Floyd Robertson! I get paid a quarter of a million dollars to sit behind a desk and look pretty but I have the worst life EVER and I'm just going to kill myself! I have it so hard with my big house and good looks!" He returned his voice to normal. Well, normal for the enraged rant he was on. "FUCK YOU! You go through what I have! Witness a war crime! Get the SHIT beaten out of you by your father every FUCKING time you see him from the time you were old enough to FUCKING WALK to NOW! Be a GROWN ASS MAN and not be able to fight back because he's your FATHER and you're not gonna be that jackass that beats up an old man! Have your father tell you to your _five fucking year old face_ that he hates you!"

Silence. Floyd stood, trembling with rage and adrenaline and uncried sobs, in the place he'd been when he accosted the hapless intern. For a moment, everything was quiet, painfully quiet. Then he felt the dam break and the lead weights that had affixed themselves to his feet lighten enough for him to run as tears began pouring uncontrollably down his cheeks. Locking himself in his office and drawing the blinds, he curled up in a corner to sob in peace, shuddering and whimpering between hoarse cries.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there crying like the baby everyone was treating him as when someone knocked on the door. At first, Floyd tensed. His first thought was that it was police, or EMTs, or firemen, any form of emergency services someone had called to lock him up in the mental hospital again. His second thought was that it was Caballero, come to fire him for violating the whole "no being in your office alone" rule he'd recently instated.

"Floyd? Floyd, baby, are you in there?" Earl. Floyd sobbed a little and managed to walk to the door, stumbling and shaking, unlocking it and opening it just enough to peek through the crack at his boyfriend.

"Oh my god, Floyd..." Earl's voice was somewhere between fear, relief, and sympathy. "... Can I come in?" he asked softly. Floyd shrugged wordlessly in response and moved to the side, sinking to the floor again with his back to the nearest wall. Softly, Earl whispered, "You want the door shut?" Floyd nodded. Earl shut the door and locked it again, then sank to his knees beside his lover.

"What happened...?" Earl asked softly, stroking Floyd's hair. "All I heard was that you... something happened in the cafeteria." Floyd nodded again. "You wanna talk about it?" This time, he shook his head. "Okay. We'll worry about it later." He was quiet for a moment, then whispered, "Is it okay if I hold you?"

This time, Floyd found his voice. It was weak and scratchy, but he breathed, "Don't touch me." If he'd looked up from the spot on the floor he was staring at so intently, he'd have seen Earl's face fall. "I... I'm sick of..." A hiccup. "Everything." Not his intended statement, but not a lie. "I'm sick of everything." Another sob, and he managed to shoot Earl as dirty of a look as he could manage while mid-nervous breakdown. "I wish you hadn't come home."

"Floyd..." Earl's expression was a mixture of confusion and hurt. "You don't mean that."

"I wouldn't have tried to kill myself if I didn't mean it." Floyd sobbed a little as the embers of rage began building into a flame again. He got to his feet. "If I was dead I wouldn't have to deal with people treating me like a fucking baby. You, especially."

"What?! Floyd, do you have any idea how bad you scared me?! I thought I was gonna lose you! I'm treating you like a little kid because you _terrified_ me!" Earl felt his own tears start to brim as he followed Floyd into a standing position. "I locked up your meds because I'm scared you'll do it again! I hid the knives because I don't want you to cut yourself! I'm babying you because I want you to know how much I fucking love you!"

"That's supposed to make me feel better?! Knowing you think I'm some helpless little kid?!" Floyd felt his hands clench into fists. "I can take care of myself!"

"I'd rather KNOW you're not going to hurt yourself than just HOPE for it!" Earl took his glasses off to wipe his eyes. "I don't think you're a helpless kid!"

"Then quit acting like you do! Quit babying me!"

"I just want you to know _you're loved_ , you ungrateful dickhead!" Earl sobbed a little. "I was so fucking scared, Floyd, I don't... I don't know what I would do without you!" He put his glasses back on so he could at least see what he was yelling at. "You're the most important person in the world to me! How was I supposed to react to you fucking trying to kill yourself?!" A sob. "I'm not trying to baby you! I'm trying to _take care of you_ so you don't fuckin' try to kill yourself again!"

For once, Floyd wasn't sure what to say. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish out of water, but nothing came out. Earl continued when he figured out Floyd wasn't going to talk, his anger cooled into blatant fear. "I... I know you probably hate me for finding you. And calling an ambulance. And not visiting as much as I should have while you were in the psyche ward." Earl sniffled. "But... goddammit, I'm trying. I just want you to be _happy_. I've sat here for six fucking years watching you drink yourself to death and cry yourself to sleep. And... and part of me always thought, _What'll happen if he tries to hurt himself?_ and then you actually did, and... god, it was every nightmare I've ever had about it come to life." Earl hugged himself.

"I... sitting there in the ICU hoping you'd make it, I felt... I felt so helpless. Every time the doctors told me they couldn't get you stable long enough to let me see you, they weren't sure you'd make it through the night... I felt like half of me was dying and there was nothing I could do. And then when they finally got you to the point where I could see you, it... it didn't feel real, and... and not in a good way. You were... I mean, duh, you were out for most of it, but... I sat there and I held your hand and I just cried. And I begged you to wake up. I begged you not to leave me.

"And you know, a lot of people came to see you. I... Sammy was the only one I actually let back." Makes sense, Floyd thought. Earl and Sammy were close. "But it was him and Bobby and their baby. Lola showed up. Edith. My parents and sisters even came." Earl choked on a sob. "I asked my mom if she'd ever dealt with anything like that while Dad was in the army. Not knowing if he'd be alive in the morning or not. And... and when she said yes, I asked what she did. She said there was nothing she could do. She prayed for him to come back, and when he got home, she took care of him."

"... You-"

"I went to temple. And church. Both. And I begged for you to be okay. I didn't pray. I begged." Earl sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "And then when you came home, I thought... I thought I had to take care of you. I... I didn't know you would hate it." Another choked sob. "I'm sorry I yelled. I'm sorry I got mad. You're the one that's hurting and I'm sitting here making it about me."

Silence. A tense beat passed between them before Floyd took a deep breath and whispered, "... Thank you."

"... For what?"

"For... for getting all of that out." Floyd swallowed around the growing lump in his throat. "I... when I was in the psych ward the therapist I was seeing told me that you might have some conflicting feelings. That you were sad, obviously, but... she said you might be angry at me, too. And at yourself. And if you were that I had to let you get it out. Healthily, obviously." A pause as Floyd thought. "I... I was afraid you hated me for it."

"No," Earl breathed, wiping his eyes and taking a tentative step closer to his boyfriend. "I could never hate you. Never." He took a deep, shaky breath, mirroring Floyd's from earlier. "I love you. I just... I thought I didn't have any right to be angry. At you or me. Like... you tried to kill yourself. I should be worried about you, not pissed, but... but no matter how much I tried to make it go away it just hung out. I didn't want to be mad."

"Therapist says it's normal." Floyd shrugged a little and sunk into his desk chair. "... I don't want you to be mad at me, either. I don't want to be mad at you."

Earl stepped a little bit closer with just a touch more confidence. "I... maybe we should see a couples' therapist?"

"... I don't want you to hate me." Floyd looked up at Earl with a plaintive, almost fearful gaze. "I don't want to lose you."

"I know. I don't hate you." Earl finally closed the gap between them and settled himself into Floyd's lap, kissing him softly. After they parted, he whispered, "I never could. I don't want to lose you, either." Their foreheads touching, the pair were quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry for yelling."

"You got it out. That's what's important." Floyd sighed a little. "I... is it okay if we go home? I... I doubt anyone's gonna wanna see my face for a while after... earlier."

"... I can try. You want me to tell Caballero you're sick?"

"If that'll work..."

"Okay." Earl moved to stand up, but found himself clung to tightly. "Floyd?"

"Just a couple more minutes like this, first."


End file.
